1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the technical field of sports training systems and more particularly to sports simulation robots and more especially but not exclusively it relates to the use of sports simulation robots for the individualized training of players competing in ball and puck playing sports.
More particularly the present invention relates to a personal sports simulation robot that provides training and practice for a player by physically simulating a human opponent with specific playing characteristics: playing strategy, player physicality, playing style, and skill level; in order to develop the player's ability to compete with and potentially win against a corresponding human opponent. This sports simulation robot is designed to simulate the playing characteristics of a corresponding human opponent on any standard court or field for the sport being played; is able to move around the court or field with the speed and agility of the corresponding human opponent; and can fire game balls to precise locations on the court or field with the same flight dynamics, such as spin, trajectory and velocity, that a human opponent having the corresponding playing characteristics—playing strategy, player physicality, playing style and skill level can achieve.
In addition, this sports simulation robot: provides a ball storage device that can be used for retrieving and dispensing the game balls; can be reloaded efficiently by the player, reloaded automatically by catching the returned balls during the playing of each game or drill, or reloaded autonomously by the robot without the player's assistance; has embodiments that are smaller in size and weight compared to other such systems to the point that the personal sports simulation robot can be kept at home by an individual player and easily transported to and from a standard field or court by the player; is controlled through keypad, touch, gesture, or voice commands; provides coaching and scoring reports to the player during the course of each simulation session; and maintains and communicates data on the player's improvement over multiple simulation sessions.
2. Description of Related Art
With the ever increasing level of play in athletic competitions there is an equally growing demand for sophisticated training techniques that can prepare a player for opponents who use different strategies, are physically different (tall, short, slow, fast, right handed, left handed), have different playing styles and different skill levels. Traditionally training has been carried out by coaches and trainers who use drills and practice games to imitate game playing situations and conditions. As the need for training becomes ubiquitous, the benefit of the repetitious practice of winning playing styles, strategies and techniques has become clear and is now required by players throughout their amateur and professional careers. The cost for a player to hire a coach or instructor on a weekly or daily basis is prohibitive for all but the most successful players. Athletes who are working hard to improve their level of play have a need for an automated, easy to use, sports simulation robot that can perform this same service for them at a lower cost and with greater convenience.
Many methods, systems and devices have been previously proposed for sports training. In particular, for ball playing sports, ball throwing machines that are designed for throwing baseballs, footballs, pucks or tennis balls are well known. Prior art of one such tennis ball throwing machine is disclosed by Scott in U.S. Pat. No. 4,086,903.
The ball throwing mechanism described in this patent uses one or two electric motor(s) that are geared or use a chain or belt drive to continuously spin a pair of wheels. Each tennis ball passes between these two wheels to be subsequently launched from one end of the tennis court to the other. The gearing, chain or belt and the associated mechanism that is used to spin these two wheels is such that the rotational speed of the two wheels can be varied in order to impart topspin or backspin on the ball. In most embodiments, the entire mechanism can also be rotated to render the spin in planes other than the vertical plane. Likewise these ball launching mechanisms can be turned and elevated to change the direction and angle that each ball is launched, and the timing between the launching of balls can be varied.
A drawback of these ball throwing machines is that the motors combined with gearing, chains or belts form a unified system of substantial size and weight—making it more difficult for a single player to store these systems at their home, and transport them to and from the playing field or court. Another drawback of these ball throwing machines is that the motor, gears and wheels are designed to spin continuously, and therefore consume electricity during the time between the launching of balls. Further, the design of the ball launching mechanism limits the range of the possible directions, velocities and spins that can be given to each ball, and none of the systems currently available is able to move autonomously around the court as an opponent would, nor are they able to catch the balls as they are returned, nor are they able to reload the balls autonomously, nor are they able to communicate training instructions or provide long term feedback to the player on their performance against particular playing styles or strategies.
Salansky (U.S. Pat. No. 5,490,493) proposes a system of two or more ball throwing machines that are positioned at different locations on the court. These multiple machines then coordinate the throwing of balls such as to more closely simulate the way a human player would return balls from different parts of the court.
A drawback of this ball throwing machine arrangement is that the use of multiple machines increases the size and complexity of the system, making it unsuitable as a personal training solution. An additional drawback is that a very large number of stationary machines would have to be deployed in order to fully replicate all the locations on the court that a normal human player might use. An additional drawback of both the Scott and Salansky designs is that these ball throwing machines lack any integrated ball retrieving, catching or gathering device and therefore require a large reservoir of balls. The size and weight of a large reservoir of balls and a separate ball retrieving device expands the size and weight of the overall system to the point that it is impractical as a personal training solution.
Eddy (U.S. Pat. No. 5,755,632) details a simple ball retrieval, storage and ball dispensing system consisting of a tube with a flange on the bottom that is slightly smaller than the size of the ball. The user then presses the tube and flange down over the ball to be retrieved, and the ball is pushed past the flange and retained in the tube. An elastic band on the top of the tube keeps the balls inside the tube until they are ready to be dispensed. This system is widely used by tennis coaches today for faster and more efficient retrieval of tennis balls during tennis coaching sessions—including those coaching sessions that use ball throwing machines.
A drawback of this ball retrieval, storage and dispensing system is that it is not integrated with a ball machine and therefore has to be maintained as an additional device that increases the bulk and size of the equipment required. A second drawback is that this device is the shape of a cylinder with balls stacked on top of each other. This limits the number of balls that can be stored in the system before it becomes too long to be easily transported and stored. An additional drawback of this system is that to load a new ball, the user must apply the force required to lift all of the balls that are already stacked in the tube. Therefore the number of balls that it can store is limited by the strength of the user.
Meyer (U.S. Pat. No. 4,077,533) details a larger scale ball retrieval and storage system. This system consists of a large bin mounted on top of a pair of wheels with a rotor that spans the space between these wheels. As the bin is pulled by the wheels over the balls scattered around the court, the rotor conveys the balls upward and into the bin. Once the bin is full, the unit can be stood upright so that a tennis coach can extract the balls for use in running drills with the training player.
A drawback of this ball retrieval and dispensing system is that while it can be used in conjunction with a ball throwing machine, there is no specific way that this system can be integrated with a ball throwing machine. This means that it must exist as a separate system from the sports training system, and this increases the size and weight of those systems that must be stored, transported and deployed by the user, making this design unsuitable as part of a personal sports training system.
Bear (U.S. Pat. No. 4,915,384) details a sports training system for baseball, tennis and other sports that simulates the playing of a game, and accommodates its performance to a player's current level of skill, and can increase the level of the challenge presented in order to train the player towards peak performance.
A drawback of the design of this system, like the design of other prior art of this type, is that the system requires the use of a dedicated environment to accommodate the multipart and specialized equipment that makes up this sports training system. It is impractical therefore for this system to be transported and used on a standard field or court making it unsuitable for use as a personal sports training system.
Ungari (U.S. Pat. No. 2008/0269017) details an adaptive sports training system that utilizes a mobile robot that is equipped with an optical information system. This system, amongst other things, determines the location of the player being trained and positions itself in relationship to the player depending upon the goals of the training session.
A drawback of this design is that it is intended for the monitoring and conditioning of the player, and is not designed or intended to have any of the capabilities of the preferred embodiment of the present invention around the simulation of competitions with a physical opponent on a standard court or field.
Ilon (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,598,782 and 3,876,255) details a design for an omnidirectional drive system. This system provides omnidirectional motion for a vehicle in any planar direction. The ability of this and similar systems to move left or right, forward or back, without changing the direction that the vehicle is pointed, is a capability that a personal sports simulation robot requires. Like a tennis player playing with the modern open stance style, the personal sports simulation robot needs to move around the court while always being pointed towards the player's end of the court.
A drawback of the Ilon design, and holonomic drive systems in general, is the loss of efficiency entailed in moving a vehicle in a direction that is not the same as the rotational direction of the drive motors. A personal device where the preferred embodiment is a battery operated system is better served by a drive system that does not translate the drive motor's power into a direction of motion that is significantly different from the rotational direction of the drive motors since it is more efficient to propel the vehicle in the same direction that the drive motors are rotating.
Another drawback of a holonomic drive system is the substantial difference between the velocity and acceleration for side to side versus forward and backward motion. This is unlike a human opponent who can more equally move side to side, and forward and back.
Another drawback of this design is the force that a holonomic drive system applies to the surface it is running on. Mecanum wheels in particular apply a significant angular force to the surface in order to achieve omnidirectional movement. The surface that the vehicle is traveling on is directly impacted by this force. This characteristic makes it difficult for a holonomic system to function on soft surfaces such as that of a clay tennis court without disturbing the soft surface of the tennis court. The holonomic drive system when driven at player simulation speeds also poses a potential danger to a hard court surface and therefore is less likely to be allowed for use on such courts. A system that uses soft foam or soft rubber conventional wheels to achieve omnidirectional motion is better able to perform efficiently on soft surfaces such as a clay tennis court without disturbing the surface. A system using conventional wheels also has a lower risk of damaging a hard court surface and is therefore more likely to be approved for use on such courts.
Sherry (International Pub. No. WO 01/41884) details a video ball tracking system for tracking balls in ball playing sports. This tracking system consists of a minimum of 4 video cameras installed at specific locations surrounding the court (the embodiment as described uses 6 video cameras) in combination with a central processing system that combines and processes the video data from the video cameras. This system plots and predicts each balls position, direction and velocity as it travels around the field or court. In the case of the game of tennis, this system is used to call balls In or Out whenever the calls by the empires are challenged by the players.
A drawback of this design that makes it less useful as part of a personal sports training system are its requirements for: four or more video cameras installed surrounding the court; substantial computing power to process the input from the four or more video cameras; and one or more full-time operators for the system. While this type of ball tracking system may be necessary to accurately determine the path of a ball for professional tournaments, by definition a personal sports simulation robot requires a solution that is: not installed as a part of the court infrastructure; that is compact and easily transported; does not require any operators; does not require any setup beyond the deployment of the sports training system itself; and uses a calculation scheme that can be handled by a processing system that is appropriate for a personal battery powered device.
The prior art has many shortcomings as discussed above. There is a need in the art for a personal sports simulation robot. Such a system is personal to the player such that it is small enough and portable enough to be: easily stored at the player's residence; transported by a single player in a normal sized vehicle or on an airline flight in one or more normal sized pieces of luggage. Such a system is self-contained and will configure itself automatically for competing with the player on any standard field or court. Such a system will keep a game playing record for each player and make available to each player a set of training drills and opponent profiles that will challenge the player at their current skill level. It will be capable of launching balls from any location on the robot's side of the court or field, to any location on the player's side of the court or field with the same ball flight dynamics, such as velocity, trajectory and spin that a human competitor of that particular skill level and playing style would be capable of. It will move around the field or court to locations that a human opponent would travel to and with comparable speed and agility to that which a human opponent is capable of. It will communicate with the player, taking directions from the player such as which game or drill to run, and when to start and stop; and provide coaching and instruction to the player such as how to properly complete each simulation.
Such a system will track the game ball or other game pieces, track the success or failure of the player's shots, keep a running score for each game, communicate this score to the player, and maintain an historical score of each player's playing performance against a variety of simulated opponents over time.